Tag Archives: India

On International Women’s Day of 2019, Didi Contractor, co-founding Professor Emeritus of the Internship in Vernacular Eco-Architecture at Dharmalaya Institute, was presented with the Nari Shakti Puraskar, India’s highest civilian honor recognizing women who have made great contributions to India. The award was presented by the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind.

After the invigorating monsoon season, autumn is a natural time for reflective engagement as we return outdoors to work with the earth. Dharmalaya Institute’s autumn 2018 program season began with a five-day silent meditation retreat, led by mindfulness trainer Ellen van Iersel from the Netherlands, which set a contemplative tone. We then welcomed a lovely […]

Didi Contractor, a celebrated earthen architect and co-founding Professor Emeritus of the Internship in Vernacular Eco-Architecture at Dharmalaya Institute (a project of the Earthville Network in the Indian Himalayas), was honored with WADe Asia’s Lifetime Achievement Award for her work in natural building in the Himalayas, which has inspired countless architects in India and beyond.

After years in the making, a new feature-length documentary film entitled “Didi Contractor: Marrying the Earth to the Building” premiered at the 2016 Dharamshala International Film Festival (DIFF) in India. Directed by Steffi Giaracuni of Switzerland, the film explores the life and work of acclaimed earthen architect (and artist and designer) Didi Contractor, whom some […]

After an unprecedented four-and-a-half-month monsoon, the Dharmalaya Institute in the Indian Himalayas is reopening its brand-new (and still-to-be-varnished) doors to volunteers, students, and interns, with a series of volunteer, service-learning, and retreat programs spanning the next eight months.

The Dharmalaya Institute, in partnership with venerated earthen architect Didi Contractor, is launching the Internship in Vernacular Eco-Architecture. The internship is a formal, academically-supervised service-learning program designed to provide architects (and students of architecture) with both practical experience and deeper theoretical knowledge in the arts and practices of sustainable building.

Dharmalaya Institute is devoted to education and empowerment for compassionate living, with a practical focus on sustainable village development, contemplative service-learning, and immersive ecotourism. Tradition + Innovation = Sustainability, Health & Joy Dharmalaya’s mission is to unite the best of traditional wisdom with creative innovation to produce compelling possibilities for compassionate living and sustainable development. […]

The biggest news on the construction of the Dharmalaya Institute is in regard to our race against time to get the roof on our baby building before the onslaught of the monsoon rains this month… and the update is that, well, we couldn’t win, so we’ve done our best to change the game.